Cliff Palace (pls. 1, 2), the most instructive cliff-house yet discovered in the Mesa Verde National Park, if not in the United States, is one of the most picturesque ruins in the Southwest. While its general contour follows that of the rear of the cave in which it is situated, its two extremities project beyond the cavern. The entire central part is protected by the cave roof; the ends are exposed.

The general orientation of Cliff Palace is north and south, the cave lying at the eastern end of the canyon of which it is an extension. The southern end is practically outside this cave, and the few rooms westward from kiva V are unprotected. An isolated kiva, W, with high surrounding walls, is situated some distance beyond the extreme western end of the ruin. Although not in the same cave as the main ruin, certain other rooms in the vicinity of Cliff Palace may have been ceremonially connected with it. They are built in shallow depressions in the cliffs and may have been shrines or rooms to which priests retreated for the purpose of performing their rites. In the category of dependent structures may also be mentioned numerous rings of stones on top of the mesa. The existence of calcined human bones in the soil over which these stones are heaped indicates the practice of cremation, of which there is also evidence in the ruin itself.

Destruction by the Elements

The constant beating of rain and snow, often accompanied in winter by freezing of water in the crevices of the masonry, has sadly dilapidated a large part of the front walls of Cliff Palace, especially those at the northern and southern ends (pl. 3) where they do not have the protection of the overhanging roof of the cave.

While the sections known as the old quarter, the plaza quarter, and much of the tower quarter are protected by the roof of the cave, even here there has been exposure and destruction from the same cause. Torrential rains on the mesa in the late summer form streams of water which, following depressions,[18] flow over the rim of the cave roof and are precipitated into the trees beyond the lowest terrace of the ruin. The destruction of walls from these flows is much less than that from smaller streams which, following the edge of the cave roof, run under the roof and drip on the walls, washing the mortar from between the component stones, and eventually undermining their foundation and leading to their fall. The former presence of these streams is indicated by the black discoloration of the cave roof shown in photographs.

A visitor to Cliff Palace in the dry season can hardly imagine the amount of rain that occasionally falls during the summer months, and it is difficult for him to appreciate the destructive force it exerts when precipitated over the cliff. When Cliff Palace was occupied, damage to walls could be immediately repaired by the inhabitants after every torrent, but as the ruin remained for centuries uninhabited and without repair, the extent of the destruction was great. The torrents falling over the ruin not only gain force from the distance of the fall, but sweep everything before them, bringing down earth, stones, small trees, and bushes. At such a time the bottom of the canyon is filled with a roaring torrent fed by waterfalls that can be seen at intervals far down the gorge. The observer standing in Cliff Palace during such a downpour can behold a sheet of water falling over the projecting cliff in front of him. These cataracts fortunately are never of long duration, but while they last their power is irresistible.[19]

Vandalism

No ruin in the Mesa Verde Park had suffered more from the ravages of "pot hunters" than Cliff Palace; indeed it had been much more mutilated than the other ruins in the park (pls. 1, 4, 5). Parties of workmen had remained at the ruin all winter, and many specimens had been taken from it and sold. There was good evidence that the workmen had wrenched beams from the roofs and floors to use for firewood, so that not a single roof and but few rafters remained in place. However, no doubt many of the beams had been removed, possibly by cliff-dwellers, long before white men first visited the place.

Many of the walls had been broken down and their foundations undermined, leaving great rents through them to let in light or to allow passage from the dÉbris thrown in the rooms as dumping places. Hardly a floor had not been dug into, and some of the finest walls had been demolished.[20] All this was done to obtain pottery and other minor antiquities that had a market value. The arrest of this vandalism is fortunate and shows an awakened public sentiment, but it can not repair the irreparable harm that has been done.

Repair of Walls

The masonry work necessary to repair a ruin as large and as much demolished as Cliff Palace was very considerable. The greatest amount was expended on those walls in front of the cave floor hidden under the lower terraces, at the northern and southern extremities. The latter portion was so completely destroyed that it had to be rebuilt in some places, while at the southern end an equal amount of repair work was necessary. (pls. 3, 6, 7, 9.) To permanently protect these sections of the ruin the tops of the walls and the plazas were liberally covered with Portland cement, and runways were constructed to carry off the surface water into gutters by which it was diverted over the retaining walls to fall on the rock foundations beyond. It would be impossible permanently to protect some of these exposed walls without constructing roofs above them; at present every heavy rain is bound to cover the floors of the kivas with water and thus eventually to undermine their foundations.

The preservation of walls deep in the cave under protection of the roof was not a difficult problem. The work in this part consisted chiefly in the repair of kiva walls, building them to their former height at the level of neighboring plazas.

Major Antiquities

Under this term are embraced those immovable objects as walls of houses and their various structural parts—floors, roofs, and fireplaces. These features must of necessity be protected in place and left where they were constructed. Minor antiquities, as implements of various kinds, stone objects, pottery, textiles, and the like, can best be removed and preserved in a museum, where they can be seen to greater advantage and by a much larger number of people. The ideal way would be to preserve both major and minor antiquities together in the same neighborhood, or to install the latter in the places in which they were found. While at present such an arrangement at Spruce-tree House and Cliff Palace is not practicable, large specimens, as metates and those jars that are embedded in the walls, have, as a rule, been left as they were found.

As the repair work at Cliff Palace was limited to the protection of the major antiquities, the smaller objects for the greater part having been removed before our work began, this report deals more especially with the former, the whole ruin being regarded as a great specimen to be preserved in situ.

Very little attention was given to labeling rooms, kivas, and their different parts, the feeling being that this experiment has been sufficiently well carried out at Spruce-tree House, an examination of which would logically precede that of Cliff Palace. Spruce-tree House has been made a "type ruin" from which the tourist can gain his first impression of the major antiquities of the Mesa Verde National Park, and while it was well to indicate on its walls the different features characteristic of these buildings, it would be redundant to carry out the same plan in the other ruins.[21]

No attempt was made to restore the roof of any of the Cliff Palace kivas for the reason that one can gain a good idea of how the roof of a circular kiva is constructed from its restoration in Kiva C of Spruce-tree House, and an effort to roof a kiva of Cliff Palace would merely duplicate what has already been accomplished without adding essentially to our knowledge.